ticular inquiries, or communications which the committee may have received from organizations, are to be printed. 15. The proposal now submitted by the First Committee to the Assembly is the result of the general feeling of the Committee that the question of the status of women cannot usefully be further discussed by the League until after a study such as is now contemplated has been completed. 16. The First Committee submits to the Assembly the following draft resolution: DRAFT RESOLUTION [CREATING COMMITTEE OF EXPERTS ON LEGAL STATUS OF WOMEN, ADOPTED BY LEAGUE OF NATIONS ASSEMBLY, 1937]1 "The Assembly, "(1) Having regard to the information concerning the question of the legal status of women, more particularly their political and civil status, which has been collected by the Secretary-General in accordance with the resolution of the Assembly adopted on September 27th, 1935; "(2) In view of the fact that, in general, the trend is for law to develop in the direction of equality between the sexes; "(3) Considering it to be desirable that a comprehensive study should be prepared and published giving full information on the legal status enjoyed by women in the various countries of the world as the result of the provisions of national law and the application of these provisions; "(4) Considering that, by its resolution of September 27, 1935, the Assembly recognized 'that the question of conditions of employment, whether of men or women, is a matter which properly falls within the sphere of the International Labor Organization,' and expressed the hope that the Organization 'will, in accordance with its normal procedure, undertake an examination of those aspects of the problem within its competence-namely, the question of equality under labor legislation-and that it will, in the first place, examine the question of legislation which effects discriminations, some of which may be detrimental to women's right to work;' "(5) Considering that the International Labor Organization is engaged in the study contemplated by the Assembly's resolution and that the comprehensive study now in view should not cover matters which have been recognized by the Assembly to fall within the scope of the International Labor Organization; 1 Source: League of Nations, Official No. A. 54. 1937. V. "(6) Considering, furthermore, that this comprehensive study should also not extend to questions of the nationality of women, in regard to which the Assembly maintains the decisions which it has already taken; "(7) Considering it desirable that the study of the other elements of the question should be entrusted to the competent scientific institutes, which should be given instructions enabling them to coordinate their work; "(8) Considering that, for private law, the League of Nations possesses in the International Institute for the Unification of Private Law an organ well qualified to carry out such a study of comparative law; and that for other aspects of the question it would be desirable to have recourse to other competent scientific institutes; "(9) Considering that a small committee of experts, comprising members of both sexes, should be set up for the purpose of determining the exact scope of the contemplated comprehensive study and of distributing the work among the various scientific institutes, and that this committee should, so far as necessary, maintain contact with the institutes during the progress of the study and examine and settle the final form and content of the resulting documents, with a view to the preparation of a synthetic survey; which should accompany the documents when they are published by the League; "(10) Considering that this committee should have power to consult women's international organizations and invite their cooperation in any form which it thinks advisable: "(11) Asks the Council to appoint a committee of experts of both sexes for the purposes above mentioned and expresses the hope that the committee will receive the cooperation necessary for the successful execution of the present resolution." 4. Committee for the Study of the Legal Status of Women, 1938-39 MINUTES OF THE TWELFTH MEETING, 9 APRIL 1938 1 Chairman: Professor Gutteridge 1 The women's organizations were represented as follows: International Federation of Business and Professional Women Mrs. Corbett Ashby International Council of Women Mme. Renee Girod 1 Source: League of Nations, Official No. C. S. F./1st Session/P. V. 12 (1). International Federation of University Women Women's Consultative Committee Miss Alice Paul, Miss Dorothy E. Evans SPEECH BY THE CHAIRMAN (Professor Gutteridge) The Chairman, on behalf of the Committee, welcomed the representatives of the women's organizations and expressed his appreciation of the opportunity of establishing contact and holding a useful exchange of views. The Committee had received its terms of reference from the Assembly, and it was important to remember that it had no power to go beyond those terms of reference. The immediate object, as he understood it, was as follows: the first step towards abolishing divergencies in the laws of the different countries concerning the legal status of women was to institute preparatory studies -a purely technical matter in itself, but an essential preliminary to further progress. The Committee were like engineers going ahead of an army to remove obstacles in its path but knowing nothing of its actual plan or method of advance. The Committee's task, in point of fact, was to fill in gaps in the data concerning the legal situation of women in different countries, and to ascertain where the highest level had been reached and where it was still low. The Committee would work on purely objective lines. Even if it wanted to, it was not free to express an opinion on the findings it might have to submit; it must not say whether this or that legislation was good or bad, desirable or undesirable, or whether or to what extent such legislation should be abolished. That certainly did not mean that the Committee viewed its task as a purely automatic one. First, the necessary documentation must be collected. Then a synthetic study of the documentation must be made, in order to obtain as complete a picture as possible of the present situation under the laws of the different countries. The Committee would deal with the problem according to subjects, and its work would be so arranged that anyone interested in any specific aspect of the status of women could obtain the information from the study when published. That prepared the way for further progress where found necessary, though the Committee was not asked to express an opinion as to whether action must be taken or what form it should take. The women's organizations would see from the texts already framed by the Committee that the Scheme of Work 2 it had drawn up was essentially technical in character. * The Chairman then referred, in order of importance, to the principal questions on the list. The most important, in his view, was to decide how far the Committee could enlist the help of the women's organizations. The Committee was anxious that they should work together as far as possible, but a somewhat technical question arose: it was not easy to say exactly what form that collaboration should take. He felt that the women's organizations could render the Committee very valuable service, especially by ascertaining whether the existing legislation was invariably applied. There were cases, for instance, in which rules of law existed but for one reason or another remained a dead letter. In other words, the Committee wanted the women's organizations to bring to its notice not cases in which the law seemed to them inadequate, but cases in which the judge called upon to apply the law did not seem to have taken the attitude that the women's organizations might have expected. For practical purposes, any objective data supplied by the women's organizations should be sent not to the Committee, or to individual members, or to the scientific institutes, but to the Secretariat, which would forward the information to the proper quarter. He could not promise that such information would invariably be utilized, but he could give an assurance that it would be very carefully examined and that the Committee would go thoroughly 2 See C. S. F./13 (p. 54). into the question of the use to be made of it and the action to be taken upon it. The women's organizations could help the Committee to collect documentation more particularly on countries distant from Europe details of collaboration would have to be decided later. The Committee felt that the women's organizations were particularly well qualified to obtain documentary material relating to such countries. Another important point was the "geographical" scope of the proposed inquiry. Interpreted in their widest sense, the Committee's terms of reference appeared to embrace the whole world. The Committee had discussed the question at length and had realized the difficulty of framing a program on so vast a scale. Even as it stood, the program of work was a vast one. For a country such as France it covered no less than a third of the Code Napoleon, and if that example were followed for every other country, it would cover a third of the civil legislation of the world. Nothing of the kind had ever before been attempted on such a scale. The Committee had been trying to ascertain from the information at its disposal, the time that would be required for an inquiry into the legislation in civilized countries. The nearest estimate, reached with the help of the experts of the three scientific institutes, was at least two years; the institutes expected to have their material ready in that time, provided that the study was limited to the legislation in civilized countries. As to native customs, the Chairman, as Secretary of the British Society of Comparative Legislation, knew from experience how difficult such studies were and how carefully the documentation on the subject had to be studied, since the data were not always reliable. An inquiry covering the whole world would take years and years. Under the Assembly resolution, the Committee would be held responsible for the accuracy of the study, and it was determined not to allow anything to be published that was not strictly in accordance with the facts. In those circumstances, although no definite decision had yet been taken, the Committee felt that the first step was to study the laws of civilized countries-a tremendous undertaking in itself. That would be the first stage. When that study was completed and the results published, the question could then be reopened and it could then be decided to what extent the work could be carried further, and in what direction. The Committee was strongly of |